Archive for the ‘politics’ tag

Back during the election, Kristin got fairly active with the Barack Obama campaign. One minor fallout of that was that she signed me up to be on the email list for Obama updates.

Near as I can figure, this email list has primarily been used to ask everyone for money periodically. Roughly once a month, I would receive an email with just enough fluff to not be too crass about the basic premise of, “Hey, Kyle… how about a little more cash?”

Now, the election is long over and the next election is far off in the future. There just isn’t much of a reason for a politician to be asking me for money. Or so I thought.

I got this email about a week ago from “Mitch Stewart, BarackObama.com”. and I have to say, this is the absolute worst request for a political contribution that I have ever seen. Check it out…

Kyle —

You’ve probably seen the headlines: Opponents of change are doing everything they can to delay health insurance reform. As a Republican strategy memo concluded, “If we slow this sausage-making process down, we can defeat it.”

They’re betting that as time goes by, our energy will flag, our movement will weaken, and they’ll ultimately be able to block any change.

But they just don’t get it — thanks to the regular Americans who are reaching out in neighborhoods nationwide, our movement is expanding every day. In fact, over the weekend, we surpassed our big goal of 1 million people taking action for health insurance reform. And with your help, we’ll keep growing and prove that our opponents’ strategy of “delay, delay, delay” simply won’t work.

Here’s how it works: We’ll bill your credit card for 30 days’ worth of donations now and once a month until the President signs real health insurance reform into law.

The cost of inaction on health insurance reform is astounding. Every day, 14,000 more Americans lose their coverage. Premiums continue to rise at three times the rate of wages. And each day, more small businesses are forced to choose between covering their employees and keeping their doors open.

But that doesn’t stop our opponents from trying to bog down the process with legislative tricks. And at the same time, they’re attacking the President for “moving too fast,” even though Washington has been talking about the need for comprehensive health insurance reform since the days of Harry Truman!

What they don’t realize is that outside of Washington, our campaign keeps growing. We’ve reached our “million” milestone, but the stories behind that number are even more impressive: grassroots press conferences with small-business owners in Missouri, more than 1,200 people at an organizing meeting in Minnesota, huge events outside local Senate offices in Florida, and so much more.

That’s why our dollar-a-day campaign is so important: If the few senators and representatives who are opposing reform understand that dragging their heels makes us stronger every day — and that the grassroots pressure on them will increase — they’ll be far less willing to keep slowing down the process.

Can you help? Please donate $1 per day until we pass real health insurance reform:

I used to be a Republican. Not only that, I used to really be a Republican. As in, “you dirty steenkin’ pinko-commie-liberal” type Republican. In High School, I praised the awesomeness that was Ronald Reagan and laughed heartedly at Jimmy Carter’s foolishness. I never believed entirely in everything the party stood for, but I believed in most of it and where we saw eye-to-eye were the most important issues to me. Small government, trickle down economics, foreign policies, strong national defense… these were the foundations of my support for the Republican party.

Today… not so much. I voted for Barack Obama this past election and quite honestly, I’ll be proud of that decision even if he fails to deliver even most of what he’s promised. I wouldn’t call myself a Democrat, though… I just voted for the person I felt was best for our country. I don’t really know what I am, but I do know that I am definitely no longer a Republican. In fact… I’m so far from it, I find myself initially predisposed against candidates, just because they are Republicans.

Why?

Here’s an example of what makes my skin crawl and long for the days when these out dated dinosaurs of hate finally die off of my planet:

Sen. Dave Schultheis, of Colorado Springs, on Wednesday opposed a bill requiring pregnant women to be tested for HIV so that if they are infected their babies can be treated to prevent the virus’s transfer.

“This stems from sexual promiscuity for the most part, and I just can’t go there,” he said.

“We do things continually to remove the consequences of poor behavior, unacceptable behavior, quite frankly. I’m not convinced that part of the role of government should be to protect individuals from the negative consequences of their actions.”

Really?? So this boil on the butt of humanity wants an unborn baby to have AIDS. even though it could be prevented, just to teach Mom a lesson?!?! Seriously?!?! What sort of human being thinks like that?

* What he said afterward: “What I’m hoping is that yes, that person may have AIDS, have it seriously as a baby and when they grow up, but the mother will begin to feel guilt as a result of that. The family will see the negative consequences of that promiscuity and it may make a number of people over the coming years … begin to realize that there are negative consequences and maybe they should adjust their behavior. We can’t keep people from being raped. We can’t keep people from shooting each other. We can’t keep people from jumping off bridges. People drink and drive, and they crash and kill people. Poor behavior has its consequences.”